…the councilwoman made a side agreement with 100 Black Men so it would ask for more money than needed and reroute $2,400 for other purposes at Green’s request — including youth football banquets and buying 10 tickets for a Kentucky Derby fundraiser.

“It was made clear upfront that some of the money would be redirected … and that (Green’s office) would tell us where to redirect it,” Rob Jordan, president of 100 Black Men, said in an interview last week.

The arrangement also was confirmed to the newspaper by Charles Alexander III, who is the treasurer of 100 Black Men and Green’s political campaigns.

A report in LEO Weeklycites police reports, leaked documents and people close to Metro Councilwoman Judy Green to outline a pattern of alleged wrongdoing and ethical violations.

Green’s involvement in a summer jobs program that reportedly benefited her family will be the subject of a Metro Ethics Commission hearing later this month. The LEO article further details accusations of wrongdoing tangentially and not-at-all related to the ethics complaint:

On Sept. 7, Public Integrity Unit officers Sgt. Oscar Grass and Jamie Hill interviewed Green’s legislative aide, Andrea Jackson, about the Green Clean Team. Specifically, they asked her about an anonymous complaint they received suggesting Green took out a credit card in Jackson’s name without her consent.

“I don’t know if you know Council-woman Green’s personal life or finances that well. She and her husband, James, could possibly be having some financial difficulties,” Sgt. Grass said during the interview. “But we were told that at one time you became aware that Councilwoman Green has gotten some kind of Visa card or a bank card in your name. Is that the case?”

Stover is accused of falsely telling federal agents in January 2011 that Massey’s Performance Coal Co. had a policy dating back to 1999 that forbade security guards from giving advance notice of inspections. The indictment alleges that Stover “had himself directed and trained security guards … to give advance notice by announcing the presence of an MSHA inspector over” the mine radio.

Governor Steve Beshear is the latest Kentucky official to ask Florida Governor Rick Scott to rethink his plans to cut a prescription drug tracking system.

It’s estimated that many of the prescription pills that are abused in eastern Kentucky come from Florida. In 2009, that state’s legislature approved a system to track prescriptions and reduce the number of so-called pill mills.

U.S. District Judge John Copenhaver accepted that “stinging assessment,” as he called it, but still dismissed the lawsuit Bragg and Hatfield filed against MSHA officials.

Copenhaver said he couldn’t “impose a legal duty” on MSHA and its inspectors and managers because that “would directly conflict with Congress’ decision to place the primary responsibility for mine safety on mine operators.”

Kentucky State Police (KSP) released the 2010 methamphetamine lab statistics today and the number indicates an all-time high in the Commonwealth. KSP reports that there were 1,080 meth labs found during 2010, exceeding all previous year totals.

Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear hasn’t decided if he’ll sign a bill that would make medicine containing the meth ingredient and decongestant pseudoephedrine available by prescription-only.

The Governor says he wants to reduce the number of meth labs in the state, but is concerned about the effect of the measure on law-abiding citizens. In addition, he says it’s hard to know if any new law enforcement system is going to be effective before it’s implemented.

“When we first put our system that we have now in, for about the first two years, the lab numbers really dropped, and then of course they came back up as people figured out somehow how to get around the system. And I’m concerned that I don’t know how effective it will be,” he says.

Beshear says he intends to listen to the debate in Frankfort before making up his mind. That debate will continue next week. Proponents of the bill say the measure would drastically limit meth-makers access to a key component of the illegal drug methamphetamine.